Chapter 40
I grabbed Prudence’s hand as we took the stairs three at a time. We thought we’d have more time to prepare, but now we needed to get out before it was too late. Our feet pounded across the floor.
We would leave this horror behind forever. I wasn’t the same young woman who had come into this house. Perhaps plural marriage had refined me into something sharp and fierce, unafraid at last to claim my own needs and desires.
Smoke seeped into the hallway. The wooden smell drifting in was sickly inviting like a bonfire, but I could hear the fire cracking with a thickening fury.
I knew there was no hope for it losing steam.
As soon as the flames breached the walls, the autumn wind would whip it into a frenzy and consume the house in minutes.
The dry grass and dead plants around us would be quick kindling for it to feast. The danger would spread and spread.
Prudence coughed as we slowed in the darkness. “What’s happening, Sister Hazel?”
“Sariah started a fire.”
“The ghost?” She nearly screeched. “But what of Jacob?”
I took in her soft, uncertain expression.
Prudence didn’t deserve to have blood on her hands, to carry any more weights and poor memories of this house.
I couldn’t help feeling glad she hadn’t been there at the end.
She would’ve helped us and it would’ve destroyed her.
Despite all the pain, her kindness and hope were her true power, and I wanted desperately for her to keep that triumph.
“He’s gone. I’ll explain later,” I said. “We must get out! Where are the children?”
“Still asleep! I was working on preparing our trunks before I roused them,” she replied.
With a shared glance, we ran together, throwing open the door to the nursery.
“Children! Wake up!” I shouted.
Esther already sat up in her bed. “What’s happening, Aunt Hazel?” Esther’s voice quivered as she pulled back the covers.
I ripped open the armoire and began tossing out dresses and coats. “The house is on fire. We must leave now. Here, put these on quick.” I shoved an armful of clothes into Esther’s arms. “We’ll get the horses and leave as fast as possible.”
Nephi climbed into a pair of pants with shaking hands. Esther threw the dress I handed her over her head and scooped up the coats.
“Where’s Mother?” Esther asked, her voice small and uncertain. My heart ripped open for Abby. For her suffering. For her terrible misdeeds. For what she now chose.
“I’ll explain later. We must get out now.”
Loud crashes careened through the tumult as furniture broke down around the house. The taste of ash settled on my tongue. It was growing stronger.
Prudence tore at the bedsheets in the corner. “Where is Edward?”
Esther’s eyes went wide. “He went to sleep in Flora’s bed. It was a silly dare.”
A screech tore through Prudence’s throat. But I was already out the doorway.
“Go, I’ll fetch him and bring him out. Leave now!”
Prudence reached for me. “No, I should—”
“I’m already halfway there,” I called back from down the hallway. “Now, go,” I demanded, a sense of finality settling into my gut.
“Hazel!” she called after me, leaning into the hall hung dark and gray now with heavy smoke. It burned at my nostrils and I did my best to cover my mouth with my sleeve as I tore down the hallway in the opposite direction.
“Go to the horses!” I yelled, choking on the smoke. At least they would be safe, I repeated over and over in my mind as I blinked past the streaks of tears in my eyes from the sooty air.
Flora’s room was at the far end of the hall, directly above the parlor below. I braced myself as I shoved the door open with my shoulder. A flame gushed up in front of me. The fire below had begun to penetrate through the floor.
A faint cry sniffled in the far corner. My heart lost all sense of its rhythm. Edward.
I jumped around the shooting blaze and into the room.
Sweat drenched me in seconds as the temperature rose.
The smoke was thicker here than in the hallway, almost blinding.
I ducked lower to try to avoid the worst of the smoke.
The floor groaned and cried beneath me. I stifled a cry of my own as the walls wept around me, their wallpaper peeling from the sides to feed the flames.
Perched on the corner of the bed, Edward sat in a ball cradling his knees. Tears poured down the sides of his cheeks as he cried.
“Edward, I’m here, I’m here, darling.”
He climbed into my outstretched arms without protest. He molded into my chest, his body too warm from the fear he’d been forced to endure alone for too long. I swallowed a sob.
But there wasn’t time to mourn yet. I had to get us out now.
I turned back to the door, but the fire had spread too quickly.
Flames licked the door, trapping us inside.
I forced my mouth shut to keep from screaming out and inhaling more of the strangling smoke billowing through the room.
I glanced around as fast as I could through the thickening air for a solution.
The window, a strong voice shouted in my head. I didn’t hesitate.
“Try to keep your mouth against my nightgown.” I spoke directly into Edward’s ear, and he obediently pressed his face against me.
Cradling him tight, I crossed the floor carefully.
Holes began to show in the bottom where the fire had eaten straight through the ceiling below.
My gut told me we had only minutes before the entire floor collapsed.
Using one hand to hold the child and the other to shimmy the window, I drove my fingers beneath the windowsill.
It resisted at first, but I forced it open.
The smoke flooded out around us into the open night sky.
With gasping breaths, I took in a few hopeful gulps of the fresh air but couldn’t rest. The danger was too strong.
I looked down below, instantly feeling the rush of elation from making it to the window dissipate into the cold wind.
We were up on the second story and below was nothing but hard dirt.
How could I jump and save this child’s life?
I tried to think quickly through a plan, but my thoughts muddled with the horrendous smoke choking us.
The heat of the flames scorched my back.
The floor creaked louder beneath my feet in final warning.
“Hazel!”
Elijah.
My heart beat again with a strike of hope as he came running from the wilderness.
He’d come back. He was safe. My chest fizzled.
From this far up and with tears pouring down my cheeks from the smoke, I couldn’t make out his face, but I could sense he was frantic as he stared up at us helplessly.
Prudence, Esther, and Nephi ran up behind him, their cries mingling with the cracking in the air.
Edward’s breaths sputtered against my breast. I needed to get him out of here. Now.
“We’re trapped!” I shouted down to them. “The floor is going to cave any moment.”
“You’ll have to jump then.” Elijah extended his arms up.
“We’ll catch you!” Prudence barreled forward, her arms shaking as she tried to form a landing spot with their entwined arms.
There was no time to deliberate. “I’ll send Edward first,” I called out.
Working quickly, I pried Edward from my chest. “Stay upright! They will catch you below,” I instructed him.
His eyes grew wide, but he nodded. I lowered him by his arms as far as I could lean out the window.
Holding back a cry of fear, I let go. “Catch him!” I screeched as he went, my heart in my throat.
He was safely caught in the pair’s outstretched arms. I cried out in gratitude.
The floor shifted beneath me, then disappeared altogether.
Screaming, I grasped the window opening as my feet struggled to find purchase below me.
There was no time to waste now. Summoning every piece of courage and strength I had left inside me, I dragged myself up into the windowsill.
Elijah drew up his arm again toward me as Prudence stumbled back with Edward tight in her arms.
The air whooshed past my ears as I fell.
I landed half in Elijah’s arms and half on my feet. Together, we tumbled forward in a crashing roll, but we were alive. I couldn’t help my cry of relief.
“Are you all right?” he asked over the smash of something exploding in the house.
“Yes, but let’s get away from here.”
He didn’t wait for further instructions.
Urging the children forward, we dashed away from the structure, now surely in danger of total collapse.
Hand in hand, we ran until we came to the front.
From somewhere within, a voice screamed.
Beams cracked and hurtled to the ground, spreading the fire to the trees around us. Manwaring Manor was almost gone.
“Where’s Abby?” Prudence asked, tears pouring down her cheeks as she wheezed.
I grabbed her shoulder, a knot in my throat. But before I could respond, another scream cut through the night. We both turned toward the house as a figure staggered through the collapsing doorway, a bright light illuminated behind them.
My eyes widened in amazement. It was Abby.
“Mother!” Esther screamed as Nephi sprinted forward to catch her as she attempted to jump over the smoldering remains of the porch.
The light shielding her flared, then flickered out as she nearly collapsed onto her son’s shoulders. Elijah and I ran over to help.
“What happened? Abby, are you all right?” I cried. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She’d been so determined to stay and lose her life with her sister, but here she was, wheezing and covered in a layer of black ash. How had she survived that long in the inferno?
Abby coughed. “It seems my sister is determined I should live. Despite everything I’ve done.”
I glanced up as Elijah took Abby’s other side and wrapped her weak arm over his shoulder.
Against the raging flames, Sariah’s white glow flashed in the window.
Somehow, she’d saved her sister. Even after bringing her into this house and her accidental murder, Sariah wanted Abby to live, to forgive her.
Heat that wasn’t from the fire burned through me.
I reached out and carefully stroked Abby’s cheek, painted red and black with a mixture of frustrated tears and soot. “It’s all right, Abby. You didn’t need to sacrifice yourself in order to save her, or any of us. I think all Sariah wanted was for you to finally end the torment.”
Her tears leaked onto my fingers.
Abby looked directly at me, as if seeing me for the first time. “I don’t deserve it. But at least, I finally understood her.”
The heat scorching up my back from the fire reminded me we couldn’t stop now and wade through it all. I stepped back so they could carry Abby farther from the house.
“We need to find the fire brigade before this fire spreads out of control,” Elijah yelled as he and Nephi carried her to the others.
I nodded. “Yes. And Abby needs a doctor right away.”
Prudence led us to the hitching post nearby, where Jacob’s horses were tied up along with Elijah’s. The poor creatures stomped and whinnied in worry, trying to break free to escape the oncoming inferno.
“Shh, we’re here,” I murmured, gesturing for Esther to help me. “It’s going to be okay, I promise,” I told them, tears thickening in my eyes.
Working as fast we could as the flames spread across the drive, we threw the saddles onto the horses and steadied them.
Prudence climbed up, clutching Edward to her as she took the reins.
I helped Esther on behind her, while Elijah placed Abby onto the other behind Nephi.
The horses clomped their feet anxiously.
At last, I pulled myself up on Elijah’s horse.
“Ready?” Elijah called as he swung his leg and grabbed me, pulling me tight against his chest.
“Yes, I never want to see this place again,” Abby said.
Prudence took off with a nod, Nephi on her heels.
I allowed myself to sink in exhaustion into Elijah’s comforting embrace. As we rode away, I turned for one last look at the pile of burning timbers that had been the house. I swore the fire moaned, then sighed in relief. It was finished.
A flash of white light caught my eye.
Sariah stood at the end of the drive, a smile tracing her lips.
Unlike I’d seen her before, she was clothed in brilliant white, her presence serene and hopeful.
She was free. She wore an undeniable look of relief and joy, as animated as if she were alive once more.
She gave us one last look before disappearing into the night air.
And somewhere from the ashy ruins a cold hymn played on:
Come, come, ye Saints …
All is well! All is well!